A Sadly-Needed History Lesson

"Let’s face it ... with the do-nothings in charge, we’d still be a colony of Great Britian."

(this is a more polite reiteration of what I wrote in comments at QandO)

I never thought that I would have to give Bruce McQuain AMERICAN HISTORY LESSONS...

Did the Founding Fathers VOTE King George out of office, Bruce?

No, they took up arms AGAINST the government and DESTROYED the colonial system. YOU would have been the "do-nothing, work within the system" pseudo-Loyalists in that context.

Likewise, the civil rights movement educated the PUBLIC, which is why the legislature went along with them. King was under no illusions about "working in the system" in the South, which is why he ADVOCATED BREAKING THE LAW NON-VIOLENTLY.

As for "reverse evolution," you are assuming that the starting point now and the starting point then are the same. They aren't. The statists started working on a basically healthy and free (save for the pathology of racism) society and gradually grew government to where it will grow on its own now even if Bush pulled a Harry Browne this very day. Only RADICAL change outside the system will work, period.

Secondly, the statists "evolved" us to this situation via lying parasitism. If you propose to do the same thing in pursuit of your goal, you'll wind up just like they are. John Lopez makes the point well here (the thread there also contains an excellent summation of the whole controversy, with links):

The electorate in general doesn't want truth, they want comforting lies. They want free lunches with ponies and ice cream, and they'll vote for whoever promises them the most goodies on everyone else's dime.

What do these NeoLibs propose to do when they're on camera and they get asked what their ultimate plan for Social Security is? Their opponent will be hand-waving about "fixing" and "ensuring" and "lockboxes", and the great mass of voters is (just like they always have) going to eat that shit up. The NeoLib saying "I'll abolish it" (the truth, let's assume) is suicide.

And they aren't about political suicide, their swipes at the LP are proof of that. So that means that they're going to lie. They're going to hand-wave about something too, something that the focus groups (they *will* have focus groups, right?) have said will appeal to the voters. Something like "lockbox" and "fix" and "ensure", because above all they want to get elected.

Now there may be some individuals in the NeoLib movement that would tell the truth, but no one in their right mind is going to let those types within a hundred yards of a teevee camera. "Just send in your check and we'll do the talking, m'kay?"

It's always sad when it happens to someone you know.